Tuesday, May 27, 2025
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A View From the Ground
News and information about politics, government, civic participation and engagement from URL Media's network of Black and Brown publishers.
Good evening. In California, state legislators are pushing back against Trump’s attempts to end birthright citizenship. In Detroit, residents worry about safety, city services, and blight. St. Louisans need support after deadly tornadoes. Finally, a University of Minnesota grad student who should never have been held by ICE is now free.Plus, as always, we’re bringing you the latest updates at url-media.com as events unfold. Have a question? Write to us at [email protected].
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The Trump administration has set its sights on constitutional birthright citizenship, but California is pushing back. The issue is being fought in court, but if it takes effect, it would impact more than 150,000 babies. But AsAm News reports, California state assembly members have passed a resolution stating their support for the doctrine.
Many civil rights organizations are supporting the resolution, including Chinese for Affirmative Action, which says more than 24,000 California babies would be stripped of rights that had been guaranteed.“If birthright citizenship was not the law of the land at the time my birth, I may not have been a citizen many of us here and many of my constituents who come from mixed status households, whether they be on legal visas or they’re undocumented, would not become citizens,” State Assemblymember Alex Lee said in a State Assembly floor vote.
The resolution, Assembly Joint Resolution 5, outright declares the state’s support for birthright citizenship and calls Trump’s executive order “unlawful.” It was passed in a 61-1 vote with 60 Democrats and one Republican voting in support.
Detroiters are seeing a resurgence in the city’s downtown area and even a population increase, but neighborhood residents still face issues like blight, crime, and city services, according to a survey sent out by Outlier Media.
Problems like these were discussed in Outlier’s Detroit Metropolitan Areas Community Survey,. About 75% of residents in the survey were Black, and 63% had incomes of less than $50,000. Renters make up 40% of responders, and 75% have lived in the Motor City for more than 20 years. Outlier has surveyed Detroit residents for nearly 10 years.While crime and safety, neighborhood conditions, and food access topped residents’ concerns, transportation and housing ranked lower. But for those who faced more than three problems, housing was at the top of the list.Interestingly, 75% of responding Detroiters said they trust themselves to deal with their own problems. And 69% say they only trust local officials to help with their problems “some” or a “little bit.” But that’s still higher than their trust in the federal government, with only 47% saying they trust Congress or the White House to work on their behalf.Read more in Outlier Media.
The tornadoes that ripped across the South and Midwest caused significant damage to Black communities. The tornadoes killed 27 people. Of those, collapsed buildings killed five, including three children. But the early warning systems that could have saved them didn’t because of cuts in federal funding, according to Capital B.
The Trump administration killed FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program in April, eliminating $1 billion earmarked for Black and low-income communities. This came just after a series of deadly weather events in March that impacted eight states, killing 42.
But the failure of the federal government to help St. Louisans prepare for weather events like these exposes a larger problem in the lack of emergency system readiness or availability for Black communities. Capital B cited a Harvard study that found predominantly Black counties in America received 23% less FEMA funding per capita than majority white counties.Meanwhile, in St. Louis, volunteers and the general community are left to address what the federal government refuses to. But this comes along with the deprivation they already know. “We were giving people water not because they didn’t have pipes, but because they couldn’t afford it before the tornado,” said activist Antoine White.
Doğukan Günaydın, a University of Minnesota graduate student, spent 56 days in ICE custody, but is now free after a judge’s order, Sahan Journal reports. But the underlying issue is that he should never have been held at all.
Günaydın, who is from Turkey and studying for an MBA, was arrested March 27. The Department of Homeland Security revoked his visa status because of a 2023 DWI conviction. But a judge issued a temporary restraining order, requiring that he not be removed from the state. On May 1, an immigration judge dismissed the case against him, but he was still kept in custody by the agency, because ICE attempted to use a rare law to hold him.U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan ruled on May 21, however, that Günaydın’s Fifth Amendment due process rights were being violated and he must be released. Bryan noted that the government had not produced a good enough reason to keep him detained.After his release, Günaydın said he was thankful to be free, but angered with the system that kept him jailed. “For weeks, I was detained with my charges dismissed, bond granted, with no pending trial or hearing,” Günaydın said Thursday. “I am disappointed in the integrity of the system and individuals that allow this to happen.”
For Black boys who may not consider going to college - WURD Radio
Much activity in the NYC mayoral race as the primary looms - EpicenterNYC
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